19.12.2003

This is serious value gaming. Half-life is currently the best first person shooter (FPS) ever. Some people will say that other FPS games have surpassed it in terms of better graphics and a more 'realistic' setting, but they are missing the point. No other game has anywhere near the hold over the PC game world that Half-Life does, and probably will have, at least until Half Life 2 finally comes out.I first played Half-Life back in the day on a AMD K6-2 300MHz machine with 64MB RAM, and a ATI Rage Pro graphics card. That was just about enough to play it at a resolution of 640 X 480 with a fair bit of chugging when the action got heavy.Play it now on an up to date machine and you can set the resolution as high as you want and the whole game flows as smoothly as silk, and looks lovely too. If anything the improvement in PC specifications has just allowed the game to show itself to it's full potential rather than making it look dated like most other games from the time it was released.Watch the opening movie from Half-Life on a up to date system set at a high resolution and you are totally sucked in. The sound, if you have an EAX capable soundcard and decent speaker setup, is amazing, and the game music is perfection. The buzz you get from the music when you first put on your environmental hazard suit is unrivalled in any game, and that is just an unimportant bit near the beginning! This game will convince you that PC games only have a few, very short, steps to take to reach cinematic standards in visuals, sound, and storylines. Besides all this, the character you play 'Gordon Freeman' is the hardest geek scientist ever. Now that's special!Half-Life is not perfect though. The later levels are a touch below the quality of the early to middle ones, but we can all live with that, especially as the game is not short.'Opposing Forces' is a classy expansion of the game, having you now playing as one of the soldiers sent in to 'clean up' the situation in the Black Mesa facility after Gordon Freeman's little experiment went pear shaped. You pass through many of the same locations you went through as Gordon Freeman in the original game, but from a different perspective, which rounds out the whole experience quite well. Opposing Forces also has some of the most memorable fighting sequences of the Half-Life bunch. The 'black ops' guys that try to do you in proving to be something really special in terms of their 'intelligent' and aggressive tactics.'Blue Shift' is the weakest of the pack, but still immensely playable. This time you play one of the 'Barney' security guards, and yes, you do see Gordon Freeman pass by at least once in the game, so there is that element of seeing things from yet another perspective. The big downer here is that Blue Shift is really quite short. But if you play through all three parts one after the other this will not matter.Counter Strike, the last part of the package, is the multiplayer offspring of Half-Life that totally dominates the world of online gaming. Despite all the immense problems with cheats and foul mouthed kids who think they are god's gift to gaming, Counter Strike still proves to be the one game that most online FPS players want to play. Counter Strike will not appeal to everyone though. If you don't have a fast internet connection then it is a waste of time, you also have to get used to wasting a huge amount of time doing nothing as you will get cut down swiftly and savagely innumerable times before you become even remotely useful at playing it.So there it is. Monster value package of Half-Life, Opposing Forces, and Blue Shift together, and the world's most popular online game as a bonus. The games will run on quite low spec machines, and are silky smooth on fast ones, and the whole thing has aged remarkably well. If you haven't already got this you better snap up this bargain now before it disappears!

2.2.2004

Half - Life. A gaming title so distinctive, it has turned the gaming world upside down. Literally. Back in '98 when it wasfirst released, the gaming community were mesmerised by how perfect it really was. Set in Black Mesa, a massive experimentalwork area, you are Gordon Freeman and you must do anything to escape alive. It delivered a strong storyline, stunninggraphics and sound, a beautifully paced single - player game, a supremely enjoyable and stable online experience and itprovided editing heaven. It also gathered a smattering of positive reviews and received over fifty "Game of The Year" awards.The best game ever.10/10Opposing Force. The first official expansion pack for Half - Life.Released in '99, this title redifined what we previouslythought of expansion packs. Gone were the days of releasing an average cash - in, delivering little more than a few newweapons and enemies. Opposing Force allowed you to play not as Gordan Freeman from the original game, but through the eyesof Adrian Shepherd, one of the Government clean - up soldiers sent in to eliminate him. The game allowed you to explorepreviously inaccessible areas of Black Mesa, interact with other soldiers, meet interesting new enemies and even get a chanceto kill Gordan himself! Perfect in length, with new multiplayer modes and maps and every bit as gripping as Half - Life, thiseasily became the greatest expansion pack ever devised.10/10Blue Shift. The second official expansion pack for Half - Life. Released in '99, this title allowed you to explore Black Mesaas Barney Calhoun, one of the popular characters from Half - Life and Opposing Force. As in Opposing Force, this deliveredmore of the same action that made Half - Life so appealing. Shorter than Opposing Force in length, it dissapointed some, butkept them craving for more since the whole single - player episode was tremendous fun while it lasted. No multiplayer thistime around, but as a bonus, a High Definition installer is included. This enables you to upgrade Half - Life, Opposing Forceand Blue Shift with a superb graphical update. This alone gives you reason to play through the two previous titles again for sure.9/10Counter - Strike. The #1 online action game. Played by millions worldwide and with no end in sight to its reign. Set in anexciting terrorist versus counter - terrorist scenario, it provided the most addictive online experience created and stillretains its magical quality. Many maps are provided, and there are tons of customisable options to make for a personal onlineexperience like no other.10/10Half - Life Generation. These four award - winning titles are now yours to own in a nice slim DVD case for £20. An absolutesteal. However, be warned that Steam, Valve's new launcher for Half - Life, Opposing Force and Counter - Strike (not BlueShift yet, but it will probably be implemented in a new version soon) and their online mods is a neccesity if you want toplay online and keep the games patched and up - to - date. Being a free download, the full client version is a rather hefty730mb, but if like me, you are a broadband user, this shouldn't present too much of a problem. Once it has installed and allthe games are patched, you are ready to play instantly. It really is worth it. Put it this way:Half - Life Generation is a collection of the four greatest games ever devised. In a small case. For £20. Can you really go wrong?10/10

16.3.2003

*shakes his head in disbelief*This package ranks as one of the best games ever, ive played it more than starcraft (which i played online for a year) and FF7. Ive been playing it every day since November 1st 2001, and it is now March 16th 2003. Firstly you get Half-life, the original single player. I played it for about 2 weeks, its a very good single player. Opposing force ive played slightly, its pretty good. Blue shift ive never played. The main force to be reckond with in this package is Counter-strike. When i say counter-strike, i dont mean the actual game counter-strike, i mean the structure of it. Counter-strike is installed and patched up and your ready to go, you have access to over 300 games to play online,

3.6.2005

In my opinion, the original Half-Life deserved all of the critical acclaim it received. For those unfamiliar with the concept, you are a scientist named Gordon Freeman and need to complete numerous tasks, including killing aliens, disabling power supplies and more.The singleplayer game was awesome when it came out, with very varied gameplay and challenges, each level flowed to the next, and the storyline was blended excellently with the gameplay. While things have progressed since 1998, even today, Half-Life's singleplayer campaign is one of the best and most rewarding experiences available. Some thought the Xen levels late on were a letdown; while I thought they weren't quite up to the standard of the earlier levels,

7.11.2003

Ok so I'd never heard of Half-Life until a friend of mine at school introduced me to it, I asked to borrow his copy and see if it could equal his description.... It was far beyond !!! Half-Life (Playing as Gordon Freeman) is seemingly the hardest and longest (No im not talking about Porn) but after a few hours every night for a week or two I finally completed it.Half-Life: Opposing Forces in my opinion is the best add-on available at this time, It is fairly easy and difficult in moderation and is probably the most addictive part of this set, playing as Colonel Shephard the Half-Life world is seen from a very different angle envolving your squad mates,

6.11.2003

Firstly, this is the best game I have ever played. It has a great storyline and amazing gameplay, and good graphics.I'm not gonna spoil the storyline for you and tell you about the devastating event that starts about 30 mins into the game. This incident really keeps you playing and is creepy and really makes the game stand out.The game although dated (1999) is still amazing to play and keeps you going plus you get 2 expansions and the hugely popular multiplayer experience 'Counter Strike' in this deal.Graphics: 2/5 - The graphics were way ahead of its time in 1999, and lack the texture and smoothness of the modern games. But still the graphics are good and easy to recognize.Storyline: 5/5 - This is the part of the game that keeps you playing.

28.6.2007

I've had this game for five years. Five long years. I've changed. So have my tastes. My love for this game has changed aswell. I love it more. I can now see much more clearly why it i so well rated. It's groundbreaking. An advance in FPSs. Halo rocks, but this is what changed the gaming world.When Half-Life arrived, not much had been done with the FPS. It was all incredibly....similar. There had not been tons of changes since the arrival of Doom, apart from that much needed mouse look. Then came Half-Life, taking all the good parts of Doom, expanding on the graphics of Quake and adding a large dosage of new ideas.An important idea was storyline. This doesn't have an easy storyline to pick up on.

28.7.2002

Having been a massive Duke fan; especially with the infinite number of maps available out on the web, I was looking for something extra and from the moment I ran Half-Life, I knew I'd found it. Good story and astounding graphics but best of all characters I could interact with. I was frankly amazed and totally engrossed, even though it was a trifle jerky on my very basic (166Mhz) PC.My only reservations came when the story line moved from the feasable and reality-based plant, to the floating world of Xen, which I thought got more desperate for decent ideas the more it went on and some levels seemed like 3D Chuckie Egg.The monsters became very repetitive and I got tired of killing 'head crabs'

9.11.2013

Wow, have just re installed this on my High spec Windows 7 PC after several years of it sitting on my shelf and amazingly it installed first time, did not require any tweaks and was immensely playable straight away!I had forgotten how much I loved (still do in fact) this game in its Raw brilliance, a real timeless classic.After playing many titles on other platforms over the years I am so glad I didn't get rid of my PC versions of all the Half Life titles, these to me will always remain the standard that all other games since have tried to emulate but not succeed for many reasons, sure the Graphics are not quite there anymore but the gameplay....well lets say I will be having a lot of late

19.1.2010

Half Life is a great game, im still playing it today.The now outdated graphics were way ahead of there time back then and the story is very good.Unlike most fps's you dont play as the best of the best, master of weapons and tactics, your character is more like one of the flock.The A.I cant be stubborn at times but if they do mess up its usually more comical then annoying.The expansions are good and take the story deeper and help you see things from a differant perspective.Counter strike is immensly fun and although old still has 1000's of people playing.Overall very solid gameplay.great storypuzzles and challangesbrilliant fun.***** A GREAT GAME AND A MUST BUY FOR FPS FANS

2.5.2014

I have only played Blue Shift and Opposing Forces so far but they more than live up to the standard of Half Life. Blue Shift is quite short but very engaging with a fair amount of action and some puzzle solving. Opposing Forces is guns blazing all the way and also has you visiting several areas to defeat one boss monster. The range of weapons available to you is huge and some like the portal gun can be used to eliminate the larger alien foes. There are some ares which are plain creepy being totally dark and full of lurking horrors. If you liked Half Life this will give you another hit of pure adrenalin.

20.3.2004

When the UK PC Gamer magazine runs its annual poll for the nations favourite PC games, HL is NEVER out of the top FOUR since it was released in 1998. That was SIX years ago! Sure, the graphics aren't going to be up to the UT2004 standard, but graphics was never the strongoint of this game. The story is one of the best in any game, and it involves the player in its atmosphere so much you'll be most scared in the empty corridors!If you haven't got this then you mustnt be a PC gamer, because this is essential for membership into the "club"

27.5.2016

Bought to install on a new build Windows XP machine, tried it on my Win 7 x64 Ultimate machine and it installs and works, But won't go past a lift in the early parts of the game. So, I had to build an XP machine to use it. The game still has the play-ability to entertain and I can understand why it won so many awards in its day. Definitely worth the money. Great graphics for the time and would even stand up against todays games.

3.11.2004

Lets not beat about the bush. Half life, and to a lesser exstent half life oposing force ( in short half life generation) is the best game ever.I own over 300 pc games, and 25 cube games, with plenty of n-gage, n64, gbc, and gba games to boot, so i flatter myself that iam in a position to say. Buy this today if you own a pc.

27.3.2004

i have not got half life yet ive ordered it tho. i play on countrerstike mostly that is the best of the four but sometimes i play sven co op that is brilliant 2. my advice is if you love action games you should definetly get this superb game

Half-Life: Generation 3 (PC) - Reviews

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